by Ellen Rhudy
Courage is not a word often associated with peace: when a person speaks of one who is courageous, he is more likely to be discussing the men and women fighting a war than the war protestors. Yet the protestors are fighting a war of their own: one that requires them to disagree with their government, one that brings them ridicule from their fellow countrymen. To work for peace requires courage – a different type of courage than that possessed by those on the front lines, but courage all the same.
When Mahatma Gandhi led his people on the March to the Sea in 1930, he was so emaciated it seemed impossible he would finish the walk. 240 miles stretched between where Gandhi stood, Sabarmati Ashram, and his goal, Dandi on the sea. How could a man, so thin from fasting, walk such a distance?
His followers growing, fanning out behind him in a remarkable display of passive resistance, Gandhi did finish the walk. On the beach, he reached down and plucked a crystal of salt from the mud. His people followed suit; they protested the British law against harvesting one's own salt passively, not by injuring Britons, not storming buildings, but with a simple walk.
Was Gandhi courageous? He did what so many other leaders for freedom and civil rights did by putting himself in danger for his movement; killed by a fanatic who misunderstood his actions, he was peaceful to the end. Perhaps Gandhi is something of a specialized case, the doubter will think when questioned on Gandhi's courage. No one can deny he was courageous, as he led his people to freedom from British rule, but the fact that he was peaceful throughout his entire life seems to say, judging by typical thought patterns, that he could not be courageous, not having fought in a war, not having had blood on his hands. Yet what else could Gandhi be? He led the Indian people at a time when they needed a leader; he taught them that violence was not needed to bring attention to a cause, that it would in fact hamper the goal the Indians aimed for.
And the Indians – they were courageous, as well. Perhaps they did not lead a movement, as Gandhi did, but they marched with Gandhi, with their fellows, expressing their views and making themselves heard. The men and women who walked with Gandhi are so much the protestors of today, the protestors of the Vietnam War. Perhaps they could not stand above the rest as Gandhi did, but they could surge forward and bring attention with their numbers.
Vietnam was turmoil and upheaval visited on the United States; protestors of the war flocked to the streets, hippies with the ubiquitous cry of "Make Love, Not War." When four protestors were shot and killed at Kent State University in 1970, and numerous others wounded, the peace movement seemed to come to a head. It seemed protestors were no longer safe; to place a flower in the barrel of a gun held by a National Guardsman would bring the images back, stumbling to the front of the mind, of those four dead students, who had wanted nothing more than peace and love and harmony in the world.
The peace protestors of the 60s and 70s grew in stature until their message was a deafening roar; mothers and fathers stood at the graves of sons who had fought in a war that America, said the protestors, should not be in. And how could that message be ignored?
Today peace protestors seem to be in safety; they can walk the streets with no fear of another Kent State. Policemen accompany the protestors, not only to maintain a semblance of organization but so they may interfere if a protestor is assaulted, if a fight breaks out.
It's easily inferred that present-day protestors are at little risk of violence; their greatest risk is not from the government but from their fellow citizens. Opponents to the Iraqi war are called anti-American, communist, druggies, uninformed. The same people who believe the Iraqi people must be liberated from violence by violence, the same people who wish Iraqis to have the civil rights of Americans, tell protestors to sit down and be quiet, and to be thankful they live in a country that allows free speech. "Have you ever been to Iraq?" they ask. "Do you have any idea what it's like there? There is no free speech in Iraq – don't you want them to have our rights?"
Opposing war, whether Vietnam or Iraq, opens a person to insults, violence. That anyone should be killed, that anyone should be verbally abused for expressing his opinions in a country that prides itself on the right of its citizens to free speech, is an atrocity. What courage keeps protestors at the rallies where the pro-war often approach only to shout insults? What courage and resolve keeps protestors marching day-to-day, when they are faced with a government that refuses to listen to their cries?
Some protestors take things even further: they do not only go out on the streets, but use their power to hit the government in the wallet. These are the war tax resistors, people who come from a long line of staunch peace advocates, including colonial Quakers during the Revolution.
In the 1800s author Henry David Thoreau spent a night in jail for his refusal to pay a poll tax that would support the Mexican-American War. Today there are several thousand of his kind scattered across the country, men and women who either refuse to pay their taxes or keep their income at such a low level that they are not taxed.
$7700. That is the maximum amount of money a person can earn per year without paying taxes. That a person can be dedicated enough to an idea that he integrates his beliefs so fully into his life as to live well below the poverty line astounds; yet some war tax resistors have requested their salaries be lowered so they will make less than $7700 per annum. Perhaps they do not make much money, perhaps they are not able to own a fancy car or a large house or see movies on the weekend, but they are not supporting a war. They stand staunch in their beliefs, turning their backs on much of the materialism that permeates American society to live lives devoid of SUVs and hundred dollar shoes.
Courage is the man who stands on the street corner day after day, raising his sign and his voice so the world will know he does not support war. Courage is Gandhi, leading his people through his pain to a greater freedom. Courage is the man who asks his boss for a salary reduction so his taxes will not support a war.
Courage comes in many shapes and sizes, and presents itself at moments when it is least expected. During times of war the courageous are seen as the men and women fighting in battles across an ocean; too often the courageous at home are ignored. But is there not something brave about a man who, day after day, walks the streets crying his opposition to war? He is there every day, rain, snow, wind coming as they please; he is there when the temperatures soar and the sweat pours from his face. He is there every day, and on one of those days he knows he will inspire another to find and call forth his own courage. And so he walks the streets, alone but not alone, for the Gandhis and the Martin Luther King Jrs and the Henry David Thoreaus are ever with him, residing within his soul, an invisible crowd to urge him through the rain.
Ms Rhudy is a junior at Clearview Regional High School.
Last modified: Saturday, June 26, 2004 at 05:30 PM